Another bad idea from state Legislature

Here's another bad idea from your state Legislature, one that could have a chilling effect on any citizen's ability to know what his or her government is doing.

According to a Journal Sentinel report, a draft bill in the Assembly would allow government agencies to once again attempt to charge hundreds - or thousands - of dollars to release public records about how police deal with and report on crime. The bill also would allow agencies to extend those charges to other areas, such as records on taxpayer subsidies to businesses.

Current law allows records custodians to charge for the costs of locating, copying and mailing records but does not allow them to charge for the cost of redacting information. The bill would allow government officials to impose fees for the "actual, necessary, and direct cost of deleting, redacting or separating information" from public documents or electronic files, according to the article.

The proposal seeks to undo a unanimous state Supreme Court ruling last summer that found the City of Milwaukee could not charge the Journal Sentinel for the time its employees spent deleting from public records some information they considered confidential.

But it's not just news organizations, which might have the wherewithal to pay some fees, that would be affected by the bill. the more serious concern is that average citizens of limited means could well be put off by the cost of seeking records. Crusading bloggers, gadflys and others may be annoying to officials, but they are among the necessary elements that make democracy work and keep it healthy.

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said that in the past government officials have abused the fees that are allowed under the law. He predicted more would do so if the Legislature provided another avenue for charging fees.

As he said in an email, "Providing access to records already is a primary function of government, so why should they get to charge extra for it?"

They shouldn't, and this bill should be placed in the trash where it belongs.